Arts & Entertainment, film, television, books, music, people and celebrities, arts

"BIG BLUE BALL," Peter Gabriel (Real World)

Bill Engvall doesn't envy being the Blue Collar Comedy Tour's trophy husband.

"Being on Blue Collar was like being married to a rich girl," he says. "It was great, but after a while you want to show people you can earn your own living."

Thus, "The Bill Engvall Show," airing 9 p.m. EDT Thursdays on TBS, is his ticket to career independence.

Miranda Cosgrove appeared to be a typical 15-year-old shopper -- applying the latest flavor of lip gloss at the cosmetics counter, fawning over designer sneakers, trying on headbands -- except most of the other Nordstrom customers on this crowded Sunday afternoon weren't accompanied by security guards and didn't have the ability to make youngsters audibly gasp, as if they'd just spo

A guide to movies from a family perspective:

"Hancock"

-- Rated: PG-13.

-- Suitable for: 9-year-olds and up.

-- What you should know: Will Smith plays an unhappy superhero -- surly, often drunk and sad -- who gets an image makeover after he meets a public-relations specialist played by Jason Bateman.

The colorful characters of "My Name Is Earl" are winging it without a script for the first time.

"Earl" actors -- including star Jason Lee -- will play "Celebrity Family Feud" (8 p.m. EDT Tuesday, NBC) in character. This will mark the first time the cast has worked together in character without a script.

Who can forget the frenzied strings, the funky guitar licks and the horns from "The Theme from Shaft"? It's Isaac Hayes' best-known work, written and recorded for the 1971 film. The man who let everybody know that film hero John Shaft was a bad mother -- and won an Oscar for it in the process -- remains a soul man at age 65.

Summer reading choices abound for kids. Here's a look at some of them:

"AMERICA, AMERICA." BY ETHAN CANIN. RANDOM HOUSE. $27.

"THE GARDEN OF LAST DAYS." BY ANDRE DUBUS III. NORTON. $24.95.

We seldom know why books are published when they are. A new novel by Andre Dubus III, anointed by Oprah Winfrey and Hollywood for his 1999 "House of Sand and Fog," would seem to be a "big" fall release.

"THE BILLIONAIRE'S VINEGAR." BY BENJAMIN WALLACE. CROWN. $24.95.

Benjamin Wallace takes readers deep into the world of old wine, where collectors value not only the provenance of the bottle, but also seek out bottles so old that they are unlikely to even be drinkable.

A talk with writer Armistead Maupin, whose "Tales of the City" became a PBS series and whose sequel, "Michael Tolliver Lives," is out in paperback.

Claude Peck: Sure, San Francisco has a perfectly good elected mayor in gay-marriage maverick Gavin Newsom, but who could debate the assertion that the city's unofficial mayor is novelist Armistead Maupin?